


Exemplum

by roughmagic



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Everyone Is In Love With Venom Snake, Implied Drug Use, M/M, Multi, One Shot Collection, Other, Rating May Change, Tumblr Prompt, Writing Exercise, implied OLD MEN KNOCKIN BOOTS, implied vkaz, pitching my own single bottles of grape nehi into fern's summertime supply drop
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-07 08:19:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15214973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roughmagic/pseuds/roughmagic
Summary: All of my tumblr writing meme prompt fills, none of the frenetic shitposts in between!





	1. Defense of reputation, dignity, or safety

Between the two of them, they’re half-deaf and probably around three quarters blind, and they _still_ hear him coming.

Venom doesn’t want to write off the skills it must’ve taken to get this far without detection, especially on Mother Base. But he can still hear the footsteps softly behind them, between the thump of Kaz’s cane and the scrape of his heel. He needs to adjust the prosthetic again.

Kaz only glances at him once, just a quick arch of his eyebrows, but his pace doesn’t change and his tone stays casual. “You know who it is, right?”

He has a good idea. When the completed project notification had pinged on his iDroid, he’d known in his heart their days of relative peace were over. Every sunny day on the green ocean would turn into a battlefield. “Once they got their hands on that weapon… it was only a matter of time before they came for you.”

The other XO makes a little huffing noise, something that could’ve grown up into a laugh. “No chance he’s gunning for Big Boss.”

“You’re the one who makes the rules around here. They know who’s in charge.”

“V…”

Would it be the worst decision to pick him up and start running? Kaz would hate it, and it would leave them open to fire from behind, but that might be one indignity too many. They’ll pass between these two buildings in a moment and exit the long corridor of shade between platforms soon enough. It’s a good enough place to make a stand as any.

“There’ll be two of them,” Kaz interrupts his thinking, face tightening in a frown. “Probably an ambush as soon as we’re in the clear.”

There’s a pipe that might hold both of their weight, but it’d mean an uncomfortable ride for Kaz. Even more so for the both of them if the bolts give up halfway up. “Evasive maneuvers?”

“Just cover me.”

He’s right—as soon as the shade peels away back to bright sea sunlight, Venom’s eye trying to adjust, he sees the movement to his far peripheral right, hears the beginning of a run behind them. The motion to cover Kaz’s body with his is automatic, and for a heartbeat all V feels is relief that he’d been given permission beforehand, to pin the other man close up against the building’s metal bulkhead.

The first shot is either low or high, thumping against the armor embedded in the back of his sneaking suit, but the next is a clean headshot. Splashes cold through his hair and down the back of the suit, and he grunts—in the hot sun, it’s actually not so bad.

Kaz wriggles between the two of them and snatches something off his belt, leaning around Venom as much as he can to get at the two Mbele kids, still caught in the act of aiming the water pistols. “You call that an ambush? _Get!_ ” Venom grins to himself as Kaz projectile squirts them with his canteen, both boys yelling in disgust and firing a few parting shots before running off.

Arm still braced against the building, Venom watches them get out of range, shaking their clothes. He’s bad with names these days, but he remembers them by sight. Green Hat and Billy Preston—for the hair. One day he’ll sit down and get introductions.

“This is our life, now that you authorized those,” Kaz sighs, annoyance overlaying something that might be fondness. He hasn’t moved off the wall, but seems to be fiddling with the canteen’s cap.

“Decided to improvise, huh?”

“Sorry.” Canteen’s replaced with a businesslike clip, Kaz tugging at the set of Venom’s belt like it’s to correct the weight. “I wasn’t packing my own heat.”

“Hm.”


	2. Holding the other's coat out for them

“Red?” Ocelot holds up the ties for him, using his thick and sweet kindergarten teacher voice. “Or blue?”

Kaz stops for a moment, caught on the edge between disbelief and anger. It’s not like everything Ocelot’s done to him—for him?—this morning hasn’t been the same kind of touchy-feely condescending bullshit, but it’s the first time he’s said anything since he found Kaz wearing mostly vomit in his shower stall.

He’d been hoping Ocelot would wander off while he took too long pulling himself into clean underwear after his shower. (Shower is a generous word. He’d been hosed down like some kind of beached sea animal, but he was clean, so that’s what theoretically mattered.) But he’d been there, pressing Kaz’s pants and watching patiently as he pulled them on, angrily stabbing the prosthetic through the too-empty leg.

Kaz has a deep and vivid image of himself lunging for the iron and swinging until he hit Ocelot, but he’s just as likely to scald himself and get carried to Medical for his troubles. Resistance is what he does best and what Ocelot thrives on, so the sensible thing is not to give it to him.

If this is what Ocelot wants to do, he can commit to the bit. It’s only embarrassing if he’s embarrassed by it. “Red.”

Ocelot lays the chosen tie on the ironing board and gently pulls a shirt off its hangar, dressing Kaz like a doll. He stands too close while he buttons the shirt, eyelashes like moth wings over his cheeks. Kaz can feel his breath on the side of his neck while he pins the empty sleeve to his shoulder. Steady and regular.

Something in his heart tells him that Ocelot knows damn well how to tie another man’s tie, but he still reaches around from behind finish the Windsor knot. Tucks his shirt in, threads his belt through the loops. Buttons his vest up, smooths two red hands down Kaz’s chest like he’s a well-wrapped cut of meat.

He holds Kaz’s coat open for him and steps back to let Kaz adjust it himself, making sure the collar doesn’t lay too flat. Kaz pokes his crutch through a laundry pile to find his hat, and when he straightens back up, Ocelot is there to pick his glasses off his face.

He breathes on each lens with a kind of loose-jawed abandon that’s the kind of subtle flirt where it would say more about Kaz to sneer about it. When he polishes the glasses with a soft handkerchief from his pocket, it’s just annoying. All it’s going to do is spread the grease around. “Ready to start your day?”

“Go to hell,” Kaz says, conversationally.

Ocelot reapplies his glasses, now smeary and smelling faintly like morning coffee. “There we go.” 


	3. Swatting a hand away from something they’re not supposed to touch

Venom’s very conscientious about where he falls asleep on base. Kaz wants to ascribe this to a healthy concern for security, but it’s more likely privacy. It’s almost definitely to keep anyone from watching him with any combination of longing and/or fondness, which is almost definitely what’s happening now.

He still manages to look like Big Boss, even sacked out on the edge of a platform, heels in space and head on DD’s side. The Big Boss you privately dream of happening upon, of having a moment just with him, where he feels safe enough to keep sleeping. 

Quiet’s feeling the fantasy for sure. She crept over as soon as his breathing started to even out and hasn’t stopped watching, with the sort of single-minded intensity that Kaz can remember feeling as a child. When he was watching bugs fight or waiting for trains.

Safety concerns necessitate that Kaz creep over too. To chaperone Quiet, not to get a better look at Venom’s eyelashes or the way his mouth goes soft. He levers himself down without disturbing the Boss, although DD’s tail thumps once or twice in approval.

He’s seen cats move the way Quiet does, slowly extending her hand out towards Venom’s face. Her bare hand. When had she taken her gloves off? Anyway, that’s a contamination risk, so Kaz gets to smack her hand away before she can lay it anywhere on Venom. “Don’t. Let him sleep.”

Quiet’s lip pulls back from her upper teeth, sort of the condescending look like Kaz should know she’d be gentle with Venom. That Venom’s a sound enough sleeper not to be disturbed.

“I don’t care, leave him alone.”

Quiet gestures with a stabbing open hand at DD.

“DD has clearance.”

Her whole face goes flat, unamused. Kaz thought it was a pretty good joke, since it was also based in fact. 

She tries one more time and Kaz swats her away a second time. Venom sighs in his sleep like a tired dog and they both go silent, but he doesn’t wake up.

He sees her reaching a third time, but as soon as he moves she grabs _his_ hand instead, with the kind of speed and commitment of a snake lunging to bite. Kaz tugs and hisses her name, but Quiet just moves his hand where he wouldn’t let hers go, gently and inexorably running his knuckles against the curve of Venom’s jaw.


	4. “Everything was fine, until you showed up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically in-universe for A Sincere Effort, but I think it stands alone as Big Boss Comes Back To Roost!

Nothing happens on Mother Base that Kaz doesn’t know about. Whether through his own observation or the careful monitoring of the way the base breathes and shifts, he finds everything out eventually. Ocelot lives through the people, the social ecosystem, and Kaz watches security tapes. Goes on long walks. Keeps his nose to the wind.

So he  _knows_  when Venom disappears, when his iDroid stops responding. He knows when DD doesn’t show up for dinner, when Quiet is very specifically in her cell when he visits.

And he’s been alive long enough to know that he should be afraid of Big Boss on an animal level. When he’s waiting for you in your office, sitting in your chair, using your scotch glass as an ashtray, Kaz knows he should remember he’s missing two limbs and was never much of a soldier anyway.

This was an inevitable nightmare that he’s played through before, during long nights when his missing body aches and there’s nothing to do but imagine what he would throw at Snake’s face, what he would shout, how hard he would kick and writhe and how he would draw blood before he died.

As it is, he tips forward the only other chair in his office, displaces a huge stack of folders in a landslide of paperwork, and sits down across from Snake. Across his own desk. It’s late, he’s had a long day, he wants to sit down. “You made a mistake coming back here. We could’ve gone, what? Another five years? Ten years? Maybe I would’ve forgotten how much I’ve come to hate you.”

“That’s not your style, Kaz.” Snake’s voice is warm, a sort of fond indulgence that he rarely spared Kaz during their MSF days. “And we both know it. You’ve got a long memory and a short fuse.”

He looks cartoonishly villainous, sitting in Kaz’s chair with his boot heels up on the desk. Smoking a cigar, looking twice as large as he is in Kaz’s dreams. A dark mirror of Venom with the same face lined in different ways, unmarked by scars. Ocelot should be curled up on his lap to complete the image.

He’s right, of course, because Kaz is never going to forget. The ideal end for him these days included shelving that hatred and pain for something more constructive, for making Diamond Dogs a testament to man’s desire for freedom and paramilitary organization.

“I like your office,” Snake grunts. “You sleep in here?”

Kaz doesn’t want Snake thinking about him asleep, so he lets himself snap, tensing against the back of his chair. “This isn’t your cult anymore. The divine word of Big Boss only carries weight when it comes from Venom.” He lets himself settle back, theatrics to make his point made.  “As far as the general populace is concerned, you might as well be the fake.” It’s a nice image, every Diamond Dog on base swarming forward to tear Snake apart.

It’s a dream, though, and Snake seems to read it off him. “It’s been long enough by now, I thought you’d understand. Venom and I are Big Boss, and that man belongs only to himself. He might have a petting zoo and kiss you with his eye closed, but when push comes to shove, he’s mine.”

“Bullshit.” Kaz spits. “That’s just what you’d think. That no one could ever possibly resist the  _will_  of Big Boss.”

“You didn’t.” He lifts his boots off the desk, rests his forearms on it instead. Laces his fingers together, gestures with his thumbs like some kind of businessman. He’s changed. “You still can’t. Or you would’ve stopped years ago.”

He’d always pictured Snake being cruel in other ways. Not quite like this. “Mother Base is not for you anymore.”

“Sure it is.” Snake examines the coal of his cigar. “And you’re letting it turn into some hippie commune with Ocelot playing house under your nose.”

“He’s  _your_  pet.” It’s a weak distraction, but Kaz has to take the chance. “If he’s playing house, it’s because he thinks you’ll like it. Presumably that’s why he’s been stealing so obviously from us for so long.”

“If we hadn’t wanted you to know, we would’ve hidden it better. The money’s going to a good cause. Your future, in fact.”

“Jesus, Snake.”

“You let it happen. There’s no way Commander Miller would’ve just  _missed_  that much capital falling through the cracks.” He smiles without showing any teeth. “You’re smart enough to know who was taking it.”

Snake’s head cocks, way too animated. It looks like something he’s picked up from someone else, to help indicate his tone. Like an actual human would. “Did you think you were paying me off to stay away?”

Kaz knows you have to disengage with him after a certain point. Just stop giving anything away, stare straight ahead, let the stress and fatigue keep your face drawn and immobile. “I don’t think anything about you anymore.”

“Huh.” Whether Snake buys that or not is irrelevant. He still gets up from the desk. Nevermind all that  _personal_  stuff. “Security’s loose around here, Kaz. We’ll fix it together.”

“Everything was fine, until you showed up.”

“The fact that I showed up at all means you’re wrong.” He doesn’t say it with any particular relish, it’s just a statement. Proving Kaz wrong is not a rare experience for him, nothing to enjoy. He stops just by Kaz’s side, where he’d have to reach across his body to grab him. Empty coat, empty sleeve. “I haven’t always done right by you.”

“I’ve given up keeping that score.” He wants to scoff about it, to turn that idea into the joke that it is. But he’s tired, and he’s been outmaneuvered in some fundamental way, again. All that’s left is damage control. “Is Venom… safe?”

“Yeah. He’ll pick right back up where he left off.” He doesn’t sound concerned. All Kaz can do is trust his narcissism not to break the other image of himself. “Let me show the Diamond Dogs what Big Boss can be. What  _they_  can be, when they’re let off the leash.”

“Get out.”

Snake claps his hand on the staring socket of Kaz’s shoulder. “So I’ve got your permission?”

Kaz twists around to throw him off, bite him, whatever he can manage. Snake’s finger sticks into his cheek like he’s teasing an old friend, and it makes him sick. “I said, get  _out!_ ”

And he does, but not because Kaz told him to.


	5. “I don’t want your pity, I want your absence.”

It’s been probably close to two decades since Kaz hasn’t felt like a pity fuck for Ocelot, and that’s enough for him to enjoy it now. The cowboy boot’s on the other foot, although shoes in general have been tracked all over the hotel room.

His accent dips in and out like a bad radio signal and there’s a hoarseness in his voice now that might be from an old injury or a recently-dedicated cigarette habit. He’s still Ocelot, still dangerous and demanding and as vain as he is handsome, but he rode Kaz like he expected to tire him out. It’s an uncharacteristic underestimation.

Kaz isn’t _that_ old. He isn’t going to fall asleep and let Ocelot slink off to whatever kind of life he’s been living without enjoying the sights. The reality of things. That he’s whole and feels pleasantly fucked, not wrung out, and that if anyone seems to be having a meltdown, it’s Ocelot.

Living in each others pockets for years paid off. The two way mirror is just glass. Ocelot’s not out of breath or shaky on his feet, but he’s the first one to start getting dressed again, with tight little movements like he wants Kaz to stop watching. He even gives him a look over his shoulder as he sits on the edge of the bed. “You can go now.”

“I know.” Kaz paid for all-night parking, even if it’s Ocelot’s hotel room. He’ll stay as long as he wants.

Ocelot seems to have aged twice the years that Kaz has. He carries it like a gentleman and it looks good on him. Well-oiled leather, but still leather. He can remember Ocelot at his prime, the Diamond Dog days, and that’s what makes this iteration so markedly different. His hair is longer, his moustache more committed, and parts of him are poking through muscle more than what’s appealing.

“Am I your first rebound after the appropriate mourning period?” Kaz asks, chin propped up on his hand.

Ocelot snorts. “If you thought that, you wouldn’t have whined about a condom.”

He should feel worse about this. He’s always had such an incredible capacity for sickening guilt, but this actually does feel like a business trip that turned into drinks with an old friend. Despite the fact that Kaz hasn’t had business that required trips for years. 

Nadine has to know, because she’s probably sharper than Kaz was at her age, and she knows better than to put much emotional stock in him as a person. He’d die for Cathy, but he’d be quick to volunteer for it, which is one of many qualities that make him a terrible husband. Another big one is the fact that he doesn’t feel bad about sleeping with Ocelot like this, not even though it’s been years and they’d parted as enemies.

And that had been before Ocelot’s long years. Before Outer Heaven. Before Zanzibarland. Kaz has worked a long time to defang the part of himself that wants to know everything that happened, every painful and grotesque detail, but he can read some of it in Ocelot’s body. Like a ravine carved by water.

Anyway, he can see just about every bone Ocelot’s got when the other man stretches down to fetch his pants, pulling them up legs that are beginning to look old-man thin. “You look like a skeleton.”

“And you got fat.” It’s the sort of toothless insult that doesn’t suit Ocelot. Kaz knows he’s in better shape than he has been in a long time. Cathy likes to hang off either of his arms or cling to him like a baby animal.

“Just trying to make conversation.”

“I don’t want your pity, I want your absence.” Spurs jingle as Ocelot manages to get his heel into his boot. “Go back to Nadine before you miss Cathy’s birthday. Again.”

That should scare him, or maybe provoke him into a rage. How dare this _murderer_ , this animated corpse of Kaz’s past know about his _family_ , all that kind of outrage. Maybe he’s old or too cynical, but Ocelot knowing things he shouldn’t has stopped offending Kaz. Certainly stopped being a surprise.

Kaz lays back, taking a deep breath in and letting it out, feeling his body and its extra parts, both the same kind of strong. “I’m still don’t know what to get her.”

“How about a decent father?”

“I was thinking more like a pony. She’s at that age.”

Ocelot stops for a moment, staring into the middle distance. He could be thinking about horses or fathers or heroin, it’s all the same kind of pale-eyed, absent concentration.

Kaz refuses, on a moral principle, to feel sorry for Revolver Ocelot. But he can watch, be a witness to this irrational moment, and enjoy it. “You’re a wreck.”

He frowns a little. It’s magnified by his moustache. “I’m not the one chasing chances to feel like a better version of the man he once was.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“Well.” Ocelot puts his hands on his hips, still missing his shirt. His collarbones are glacial and his muscles seem to have eaten away anything else left on his body that isn’t bone. “I’m going to leave, and then resume my glamorous life as a highly-prized mercenary with a drug habit of a seventies rock star.”

Kaz laughs, which makes Ocelot smile.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> There's no good tagging system for my writing responses on tumblr, so I feel better putting them here, you know? I'm at coyotefather.tumblr.com if you want to observe me in the wild, or submit prompts!


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